by Meli Raine
“I want you to trust me.” The insistent tone gets me right in the diaphragm, making my breastbone ache up to my throat. A part of me wants to trust him, too. A big part of me.
It’s where my heart lives.
“You have a funny way of showing it.”
“I–I was trying. I really wanted to take you out, talk like regular people, do the getting-to-know-you bit...”
“Well, Silas, I have to say, you sure do know how to make an impression on a first date.”
His smile is broad, the explosive laughter a bonus. As he moves, chunks of broken car-window glass fall to the ground off his lapel, making little tinkling sounds.
“It takes a lot of work to make that kind of impression.” We both look over at the intruder’s dead body and stop laughing.
“Look. Trust me for now. You don’t have to trust me forever. Just now. Let’s go to my place, get cleaned up, and have that date at my place.”
“I told you, I don’t want to live at your place!”
“Not live. Just... breathe. Pause. Rest.”
“I have one condition.”
“Name it.”
“Do you like to play Candyland?”
His grin is so genuine. “No, but I know someone who calls herself the world’s master...”
Chapter 5
“I have another condition,” I inform him. As charmed as I am by the offer to spend time with his niece, I need more. Every part of the world feels like a sharp dagger pointed at me. Each molecule is a threat. As I breathe in and out, I’m inhaling threats and exhaling denial.
It’s exhausting.
“Of course you do.”
“You have to open up and give me more information about threats. You have to. Drew’s being an asshole.”
“Drew is doing his job.”
I’ve ruffled Silas, who clearly doesn’t like my criticism of his boss and friend.
“And I am protecting my sanity. I can’t have some crazed man sneak into my... father’s estate using his personal code and start shooting at me and be kept in the dark.”
“That is really all there is to know.” He shrugs. Blinking hard, he’s trying to be neutral and cool.
You can’t fold emotions and put them back in a Do Not Show box when you’ve kissed someone as passionately as Silas has kissed me. Once you cross that line, that’s it.
Show anger? Passionate hate? Incredulous disgust? Sure.
But lying to someone whose hands have held you bound to them while your lips and tongue whisper secrets through strokes and aches, fevered bites and longing licks?
No.
“Silas. If you want me to trust you, you either need to tell me the truth or become a much, much better liar. That is bullshit and you know it.”
“Let’s talk on the car ride to my place.”
Grudgingly, I move with him toward the SUV, because really–what choice do I have?
“I’ll have clean clothes for you there. Someone was supposed to deliver them by now,” he adds.
I halt. “You set this up before I said yes?”
“I was reasonably confident you’d agree.”
“You were cocky.”
“Same thing.”
“Not the same thing.” I stop walking. I turn to him. The sun makes it impossible to see his eyes, but I know he’s laughing at me.
“You’re argumentative.”
“I am defending my boundaries.”
“That’s another way to put it. Come on. Let’s get you into a shower.”
I make a sound that suggests he’s being inappropriate.
“Look at your skin, Jane. You’re covered in glass shards and blood. You need to clean and dress all of that. In fact, maybe an ER is a better option than my place.”
The thought of going to a hospital, of the endless forms and discussions and explanations, feels worse than dealing with pain. “No. Fine. Your place. But I am not living there.”
“I understand.”
“And if you have ice cream in your freezer, I will eat it all.”
“Are you done listing conditions?”
“One more. If you really are taking me out on a date, I’m getting lobster, buddy. Lobster tails and filet mignon. I am going to be high maintenance.”
He smothers a smile with his hand.
“And that is different from–what?”
I glare at him.
But I love his laugh. “Go for it. Add a bottle of Dom Perignon, Jane. Live it up.”
“Yes!”
“I’m sure you’re worth it.”
“But don’t think because you’re buying me dinner that I’m a sure thing.”
“I don’t assume anything when it comes to you,” he says, his voice full of warmth.
“You used to.”
“My mistake.” He looks pretty happy for a guy who was so wrong.
“You admit you were wrong?”
“Of course.”
“Most guys don’t.”
“I’m not most guys.”
Thank God.
I lean back and close my eyes, letting Silas command the clean SUV along the surface roads before we hit the I-5. Thick traffic seems to bother him. He drives just enough on the shoulder to take the next exit.
“Why are you going this way?” I ask.
“Gridlock makes us a sitting target.”
“You think someone might shoot at us on the I-5?” After what we just went through, I know he’s right. Suddenly, traffic isn’t just an annoying given in Southern California.
It’s directly connected to my ability to stay alive.
“They infiltrated The Grove. That speaks to an inside job. I don’t rule any danger out.” Scanning the horizon, he looks at every lane, every car, eyes moving as if he’s been programmed.
Because he has.
“Inside job? If I had to lay bets, I’d pick Monica Bosworth.” I’m totally joking, but realize he’s not laughing. I look at him. Grim lines bookend his mouth, his jaw tight.
“Silas? You guys think Monica was behind the shooter?”
“No,” he says slowly. “But we can’t rule any suspects out.”
“She’s close to being the first lady of the United States! You think she would give an intruder her husband’s private code so the guy could come to their estate and kill me?”
“It sounds crazy,” he confirms.
“It is crazy.”
“We rule nothing out.”
“Sounds like you’re ruling Monica in as a suspect.” Secretly, the thought gives me a hopeful thrill. If evil has a face, it’s hers. At the same time, years of knowing her as Lindsay’s aloof, power-hungry mother fill me with an unearned soft spot for her. All those years of vacations weren’t that bad. She could be witty and funny.
As long as you weren’t the target of her sharp tongue.
“Think about it, Jane. Your paternity was just revealed, Monica’s cheating and Lindsay’s paternity were part of that meeting–and within minutes someone tries to shoot you on Senator Harwell Bosworth’s personal grounds? The guy got past all our security. You don’t do that without an insider feeding you information.” He gives me a sideways glance that makes me groan.
“Drew thinks I’m responsible, doesn’t he?”
Silas goes quiet, making a left turn, the sound of the blinker filling the space between us.
I keep my eyes closed and try not to move. Every time I move, my skin stings.
“You’re smarter than anyone ever warned me,” he finally says, voice rueful and admiring.
“If that is supposed to be a compliment, you’re really, really terrible at them.”
“It’s meant to be a compliment.”
“If my intelligence comes as a surprise, you haven’t been paying attention.”
“Is that an insult?”
“Yes.”
“You’re very good at them.”
“I’m also good at compliments.”
“And Candyland,” he adds drolly.
<
br /> I’m caught off guard by the reminder of Kelly. “I am,” I reply, softening my tone. “How is she?”
“About what you’d expect. Mom and I broke the news to her gently. It was... hard.” His voice chokes with emotion as he swings the car to the left again, veering around a delivery truck before turning.
“I’m so sorry.” The enormity of what Silas is living with makes it hard to breathe.
He nods.
My eyes fill with tears. I reach up to wipe one away and accidentally drag a small sliver of glass across my cheek, scratching myself. The teardrop drips into the open wound, stinging more.
“If I can help in any way,” I start to say, but emotion overcomes me.
“Jane,” he says gently. “You have more than enough on your plate. Kelly will be fine. She’s a sweet little kid who misses her mommy. My mother and I are handling it. She has two adults who love her very much. That’s more than most people have. If anyone needs help, it’s you.”
“My needs are simple. I just need people to stop trying to kill me.” Crack! Crack! The sound of the bullets flying past us a few minutes ago echoes through me. From car bombs to someone killing Tara to a mad gunman–my “simple” life isn’t ever happening.
The tears just keep rolling.
“That simple, huh?” he asks rhetorically.
“Right. Seriously. If they would just stop, I could pick up all the destroyed parts of my life and try to build a new one.” Sniff.
“You know that’s not how this works.”
“Shhhhh.”
“Why are you hushing me?”
“Because all I really have left is the ability to live in a state of denial when needed, and you’re stripping it away.” I wipe my tears with the heel of my hand, watching for glass. A right turn, then a left, and suddenly we pull into an underground parking garage.
“This isn’t your apartment building,” I note.
“No. We’re changing cars.”
“Oh.”
A quiet peace settles between us as I obediently follow him. He punches a key code into the door handle of a boring navy sedan and motions for me to climb in. The car smells like pineapple air freshener that has baked into the cloth interior. It reminds me of my mother’s car for no reason whatsoever.
I drop my head and let myself cry.
Silas says nothing, his silence one of companionship. He isn’t awkward or tense. He’s just there, a presence. I can lower all my defenses and feel what I’m actually feeling in real time. No need to store this away to be dealt with later.
I have more than enough of a historical archive to mine in future days when life has calmed down.
If it ever calms down.
The thought of living like this for the rest of my life horrifies me.
And makes me cry harder.
My chest starts to to constrict, throat tightening, my lungs working harder and harder to get enough air. Every time I start to feel calmer, all the small abrasions on my skin scream. Too many parts of my inner and outer self need attention at the same time.
What do organisms do when they cannot handle an overwhelming amount of stimuli?
They self-destruct.
There is a point where living with your own mind becomes its own torture. You can’t turn off the racing neurons. You can’t stop processing trauma. You can’t quell the endless screaming inside. People turn to drugs or alcohol or food or sex or gambling to transform internal pain into an external release, but it just manages symptoms.
It never cures what causes all that crazymaking.
Ultimately, you’re trapped by... you.
I know it’s a temporary state. If I just get a hot shower, some food, and some rest, then tomorrow will be better. Call me the Scarlett O’Hara of the twenty-first century. Tomorrow is another day.
But damned if getting through today doesn’t feel like an endless saga to endure. My own private war.
“Need a tissue?” Silas asks, bending toward me to open a compartment. A small tissue box is in there, next to a few blister packs of pain-relief medicine and some peppermints.
“No. If I wipe my tears again, I’ll just scratch myself with glass. I’ll shower and cry in there.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I’m sorry you have to feel all of this.”
“Me, too. I’m sorry you can’t even be with your mother and niece right now. All because of me.”
“I... I’m not here because I have to be, Jane.”
“But you’re working.”
“Yes, I am. But this job shifted from work to personal long ago. You know that.”
His words make me cry harder. This time, there is texture to my sobs. I’m a mixture of pleasure and pain, of sorrow and joy, of hope and despair.
And that is all Silas’s fault.
We pull into his apartment complex in more silence. This time it’s even deeper, this need to cry. I’m too raw, inside and out, to make sense of anything. The kinder he is to me, the more bewildered I am. It was so much easier to co-exist with him when I thought he hated me. There was clarity.
This? It’s so much better and at the same time, so much more fraught with danger.
Because it’s not my safety I’m worried about with Silas.
It’s my heart.
Chapter 6
The hot shower turns out to be a bad, bad idea.
I’m not thinking, so I turn into a muscle-memory machine, walking into Silas’s bathroom and doing my pre-shower routine. Find a towel. Turn on the water spray. Pull the curtain. Start to undress. As I yank my shirt off, I inhale sharply through clenched teeth. I’m essentially dragging shards of glass along my skin.
I move very, very slowly, using my injured hands to pull the dirty, torn cloth of my shirt off my skin and over my head. A small sprinkling of glass strikes the tile floor, making little ping ping ping sounds.
Soon enough, I’m naked.
As I turn, I see that the bathroom door has a full-length mirror attached to the back of it.
I view myself in harsh light for the first time in a while.
It’s not pretty.
Bruises dot my thighs, calves, and arms. A particularly dark one is on my upper hip, close to my ass but lower, on the side. It looks like a piece of dark blue tie-dye, a 1960s freedom festival gone wrong. Small scratches, some healing, some fresh, make me look like someone threw me into a burlap bag with a sack of angry cats.
My bangs are too short, making my wavy hair coil up. My dirty, uncombed hair is–funny enough–a lot like Kelly’s was the night I met her. Before her bath.
At the thought of little Kelly, I look at my own face, eyes wide with emotion. I give myself permission to feel. Like I told Silas, I can cry in the shower.
Turns out, I can also cry before.
I count back the days.
Six days ago, I was sitting at my table at the coffee shop in Santa Barbara, completely unaware of the car bomb planted in my vehicle.
Five days ago, I was at Alice’s ranch for the first time, posing.
Four days ago, I was called back to The Grove and forced to submit to a medical exam that made Silas intervene.
Yesterday, I met Kelly.
And today, I learned the identity of my real father.
Then someone broke into his private estate with a code only Harry, Monica, Lindsay, and his security team knew–and tried to kill me.
There aren’t enough hot showers, bubble baths, or pitchers of sangria to deal with my week.
I pull the shower curtain back and gingerly step in, bracing for the spray.
I scream.
Bang bang bang.
“Jane?” Silas yells, instantly on the other side of the door. He pushes his way in.
The pain of too-hot water cleaning the remaining glass off my skin renders me mute. I open my mouth to reply, knowing I need to. Each gasp makes it harder to tighten my throat and make my vocal cords work. The searing burn takes o
ver all my skin and I step back, trying to escape it.
“JANE!” The only thing between us is the shower curtain.
“WHAT?” is all I can manage to say back.
“You screamed.” He sounds unsure of himself suddenly, his body in shadow, magnified by the bathroom light and my own despair.
“The water. It hurts,” I say back, choking out whatever answer I need to give to make him leave me alone so I can cry.
“We really should have gotten you medical attention,” he adds through the curtain. “Once you’re done, we’ll go to an ER.”
I reach for the shower faucet and turn the water to a cooler temperature. Then I begin to lightly skim my arms, feeling for glass. Nothing.
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “Do you have antibiotic cream?”
“Yes. In a first-aid kit.”
“Then I’m fine.” I say it with a finality, a heaviness that I hope signals to him that he should leave.
I can hear him touch the door. Then footsteps, walking away.
Good. He gets it. He gets me.
I’m glad someone does.
Once the first round of water escorts the broken glass off my skin like it’s going on a perp walk, I sink into the warm water and let myself fall apart.
We hold up these versions of ourselves to the world. I harbor no illusions anymore. Any belief I have about myself is up for question. Nothing is permanent, nothing is real, except the very painful and stark acknowledgement that people want me dead.
Dead like Tara.
Dead like John and Stellan and Blaine, like my mom, like my dad–
No.
Not my biological dad. He is alive and well and working damn hard to be the next president of the United States.
My nose clogs and I laugh as the water absurdly continues, oblivious and stalwart, doing what it knows best. The laws of physics don’t change because I learned a crucial part of my identity today. I haven’t changed, either. Not my body. Not my core. I’m the same Jane who woke up this morning and had a cup of coffee.
For a few brief, wet seconds, the shower water just pours down on me. Same Jane. Same breasts. Same body.
Same ruined life.
The unfairness of it all grabs my gut and twists it. The cold, cruel shower tile presses hard against my cheekbone as I fold in half. Emotion turns me into a wretched, naked thing with an open mouth turned upward, seeking absolution. Seeking relief.